Newsracks getting tagged the other way

Stumbled across these newspaper racks being tagged, literally, at the northeast corner of Riverside and Laurel Canyon a couple days ago. Instead of spraypaint and sharpie, these were tagged by the City of Los Angeles Street Services, for apparently being too close to a parking space (at least the tag I snagged a photo of was marked so).

The one newspaper rack that was spared a tag, in spite being between other racks, was the one for USA Today. Unless someone had removed the tag, they apparently passed muster while the L.A. Times didn’t.

After the jump, a few closeups of the tags. I’d have asked the City Nerd to explain but, apparently, he’s been abducted by aliens.

One Reply to “Newsracks getting tagged the other way”

I usta do production for a rather large employment magazine in Los Angeles, and I was close with the publishers, one of whom was also the distribution manager. While it was remarkable to ride round and retrieve chunks of L.A.XPress (a rag notorious for its cuckoo bird-behaviour in that anyone who has a free periodical will have found the L.A.XPress nesting in their kiosk at one time, if not several) for the fun of heaving them over the gate on La Brea and watching them explode over all the parking lot.
Anyhow.
Tagging newsracks is but one more channel of highway robbery by the city. Th epeople responsible are assholes, the citations are high as well as often unfounded or at least ambiguous, and the Street Services jerks have been known to frequently confiscate the stands on the same day as issuing the tags. Add to that each city’s different as well as difficult-to-navigate rules, and the costs of keeping up were astronomical. Strict statutes on distances from red curbs, the curb, lettre-boxes, doorways, parking meters, other boxes as well as the voluminous contact labels required and the daily maintenance against tagging, litter, paper cups full of crack (yes, that space beneath the spring platform is perfect for the street dealer) and all sorts of other street furniture rules made it all but impossible to adhere to the demands of the shitheads of Street Services.
As the cheaper stands had an average cost of $800 in the 1990s, the city took into account how to fine the publishers just enough to make it barely worth getting back, but worth the fine nevertheless.
The L.A. Times usta be exempt from getting fined, a fact that earned them a contempt among everyone else who maintained stands. I see that they have lost their clout, but apparently the wastepaper that is USA Today has enough to keep up their protection pay-outs.